DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE KATHLEEN HICKS:  …Good afternoon everyone. So it's a big pleasure to be with you here today to talk about the Department of Defense's new Arctic strategy, which Secretary Austin recently signed. Let me begin by expressing my gratitude to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Iris Ferguson and her team for their leadership in crafting this important and influential guidance.

The Arctic region of the United States is critical to the defense of our homeland, the protection of U.S. national sovereignty and the preservation of our defense treaty commitments. It's home to significant defense infrastructure, important for homeland defense and projecting global power. Radars and sensors in Alaska detect threats to the homeland and Alaska's strategic location, places it at the crossroads between the Indo-Pacific and Europe.

Our Arctic strategy will guide the department's efforts to ensure that the Arctic remains a secure and stable region and now is a critical time in the region. Climate change is fundamentally altering the Arctic and with it, geopolitics and US defense missions. The readiness of our forces for those missions is always foremost on our minds, and that's why for decades across Republican and Democratic administrations, the department has been seeking to ensure our military capabilities can meet the mark even in the face of a changing climate. Climate change and the resulting shifts in the operating environment require us to rethink how we best protect our warfighters and prevent conflict.

This transformation affects how we support our allies and partners and it impacts our ability to deter and, if needed, defeat our adversaries. And that's exactly what this new Arctic strategy takes into account. The Arctic is strategically vital to U.S. national security. Our forces can reach about any theater in the Northern Hemisphere by way of the Arctic. Yet, melting Arctic ice caps are opening new shipping lanes and attracting increased interest and activity from both the People's Republic of China and Russia.

While not an Arctic state, the PRC seeks greater influence in the region, greater access to the region and a greater say in its governance that's concerning given that it's the only strategic competitor with the will and increasingly the wherewithal to remake the international order. That's why you hear us refer to the PRC as our pacing challenge.

At the same time, Russia continues to pose an acute threat to security and stability in the region. Despite its losses in Ukraine. Russia has continued to build up its military infrastructure in the Arctic and assert excessive claims over Arctic waters. Russia's ongoing illegal war in Ukraine has rendered government to government cooperation on Arctic matters, virtually impossible.

More troubling, we've seen growing cooperation between the PRC and Russia in the Arctic, commercially with the PRC being a major funder of Russian energy exploitation in the Arctic and increasingly militarily with Russia and China conducting joint exercises off the coast of Alaska.

All of these challenges have been amplified because the effects of climate change are rapidly warming temperatures and thinning ice coverage and it's enabling all of this activity. So we must have a strategy that ensures our military readiness in the face of these changes, ensuring our ability to quickly respond to threats in the region and to the overall demands they place on our force.

Our Arctic strategy adopts a monitor and respond approach in the region. It is underpinned by robust domain awareness and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, cooperation with our allies and partners and deterrent power enabled by the agility of the joint force. The strategy focuses on enhancing our domain awareness and Arctic capabilities, engaging with our allies and partners and exercising calibrated presence in the region.

In the Arctic, the strategic can quickly become tactical, ensuring that our troops have the training, the gear and the operating procedures for the unique Arctic environment could be the difference between mission success and failure. It is imperative that the joint force is equipped and trained with what they need to operate in the Arctic and while succeeding in the Arctic will require effort, the DOD will not navigate these challenges alone.

The Arctic is home to a unique concentration of like-minded, capable allies and a network of strong partners. Engagement with this network is foundational to our approach. For example, key to our strategy is modernizing NORAD's ability to detect and track threats emerging from and through the Arctic in partnership with Canada.

And as we saw at the Washington summit two weeks ago, the historic accession of Finland and Sweden to the NATO alliance not only makes them safer, but it makes our alliance stronger, including in the High North. Finland and Sweden's historic decision to join NATO has made all seven like-minded Arctic nations allies. We will continue to train and exercise alongside each other, strengthening deterrence, deepening cooperation and ensuring our shared security in the Arctic.

Finally, the Joint Force will continue to exercise calibrated presence in the region. This will include not only regular training and exercises that improve the joint force's ability to operate in the difficult Arctic environment, but also the day-to-day operations that underpin defense and deterrence in the region.

This is especially the case in Alaska where day in and day out, the joint force is executing the vital homeland defense mission. Rest assured that the department is investing in the Arctic across all domains. We've invested in ground and air capabilities and infrastructure, including in the development of a system of sensors that will provide enhanced air and maritime domain awareness and in extreme cold weather equipment and gear.

We've invested in space capabilities that further improve domain awareness and provide a clear picture of the Arctic operating environment and we've invested in the maritime domain. In fact, the Navy has launched several research and development efforts to enhance capabilities that enable more accurate modeling and predictions of the Arctic domain.

The Department of Defense is not acting alone. Advancing this strategy is part of a whole of government effort to protect U.S. interests in the Arctic. For example, the Department of Defense supports the U.S. Coast Guard's program to strengthen U.S. icebreaking capability by procuring three new polar security cutters.

And in fact, the United States, Canada, and Finland recently announced our intent to collaborate on icebreaker production, which is yet another example of the type of cooperation we can leverage. While it's important to note that the department doesn't budget by region, we will continue to invest in ways that enable the joint force to deploy at the time and place of our choosing to defend U.S. national interests.

As the Arctic security environment continues to evolve, DOD remains ready to adapt to protect our national interests. This new Arctic strategy is an important step forward in ensuring that the Arctic remains stable and secure now and into the future. I'd like to once again thank Deputy Assistant Secretary Ferguson for her work and the tireless work of her team in developing this strategy.

She'll follow up with more details about the strategy, but first I am happy to take a few questions. Thank you.

STAFF:  Thank you, Deputy Secretary, Lita Baldor from Associated Press.

Q:  Thank you. Thanks for doing this. You mentioned investment a lot and we've frankly been hearing for the last more than ten years about the need for greater investment in the Arctic including greater sensors etc. Can you give us a sense just from a budgetary perspective, even though you don't budget by region, what has the Pentagon done for investing in the last couple of years since the previous strategy came out?

And how much do you expect the department to actually invest in the next couple of years in order to begin to catch up with Russia and China? And then I had a very quick Russia-China question.

HICKS:  So, as I said, we don't budget by region, we also don't arms race. We don't benchmark what we spend or how we invest in capabilities necessarily by the way in which an adversary or a potential competitor chooses to do so. So our approach is about taking the strategy which we now have and applying against it, the kinds of capabilities we think are important for realizing that strategy.

So to that end, the focus on ensuring a stable and secure region, we're very focused of course on domain awareness. We're very focused on making sure we can access the region from space down to undersea. Some of those are enduring capabilities you can think of that we've long had. In other areas, as you point out, we want to make increased investments.

So those increased investments I mentioned already include the Archer ground-based sensor network that's that ground based sensor network. I mentioned that we've been investing in recently the last several years and over three years it's about $43 million there. We've also been investing in NORAD's long range radar sites including significant investment in the supporting infrastructure in the tens of millions of dollars.

Again, we, of course, have been investing in our space base up in Greenland. We've activated the 11th Airborne Division up in Alaska, which I visited in May of 2023 as they were standing up and they're the Arctic Angels now. Really focused, as I said on making sure at that tactical level that we're training appropriately and investing in the gear and other capabilities needed.

And I'll also add that operational footprint being able to stand up and operate an exercise, we have lots of exercises we're doing. Those are investment streams as well as opposed to strictly into the capabilities themselves. It's about making sure we're ready to execute missions there. So that's a quick summary of some of the areas we've been investing in.

Q:  And just a very quick, is there any way for you to quantify the increase you've seen in Russia and China activity in that region over the past couple of years?

HICKS:  I don't have a way to quantify it. I think what I would say is it's very noticeable and concerning both individually. The Russians of course have even as they've continued their operation, their war in Ukraine, they've been continuing to invest in their infrastructure through art throughout the Arctic region that they can access.

And then we've seen much more PRC activity both in terms of so-called research, but because of their civ-mil fusion, we always have concern that there's a military aspect to that. And also in terms of their activities, for instance, with the Russians in terms of bomber patrols, maritime etc.

STAFF:  OK, we'll move across the room to Alex Horton from the Washington Post.

Q:  Yeah, thanks for doing this.

HICKS:  Sure.

Q:  So you spoke a little bit about the infrastructure challenges, but what are some of like the regional and infrastructure realities that make operations in this area difficult, you know, you talked about space based solutions though I understand like just the nature of satellites past the Arctic Circle makes it really difficult. So how are you trying to get around all of these realities of the region?

HICKS:  Sure, so some of our capabilities are immediately applicable and we want to think about that in a global force sense, how do we balance potential demand in this region versus demand in other regions. But to your point, we know there are cases in which we want to make sure our capabilities can operate in a very harsh Arctic environment.

While the climate is changing, its opening up sea lanes is opening up access, but it's not currently warming to the point where it's not noticeably harsh up in the Arctic. So in some cases, we're having to make sure our equipment functions just as we had to do during everywhere from Desert Storm forward.

We had to make sure we had equipment for instance that could operate in the desert. We need to make sure that the capabilities that we bring as a joint force can operate in that environment. And without getting into sort of specific systems or details, we also have to check to see you know to the issue you raised where we have limitations on accessing all that we want to be able to see in the environment and making sure we have the capabilities to bring to bear for that.

STAFF:  And we're going to have to go to last question, Patrick Tucker from Defense One.

Q:  Hi, Patrick Tucker from Defense One. So as you just pointed out, the Arctic is becoming more accessible, but it's still a very difficult environment to place human beings, especially for long periods of time do recent advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy support this strategy. And if so, how does that continuous monitoring mission, for instance, become more practical and easier now because of advances in AI or autonomy?

HICKS:  OK, I'll take first kind of uncrewed and autonomy and then the AI piece. So domain awareness missions are well suited for uncrewed systems approaches and all domains, so sensing missions, ISR, etc. So this is a clear area where we can apply some of what we're doing in the department. It, you know, the features we're looking for, there are endurance, not putting humans at risk again in a harsh environment.

But at the same time, to the point I was just making, you have to ensure that even those uncrewed systems are survivable to a long enough, at least to endure or are so inexpensive that there a treatable nature is still worth it for the mission. You're putting them on, so that means a lot of research and development and testing.

And that's where we're focused in this area, looking at the possibilities of where an uncrewed systems can bring value. But I think as replicator is demonstrated, we are ready to kind of catalyze where we can, the movement toward these sorts of capabilities and really see their potential. That then links directly, I think, to your question on AI. There are many applications I think of AI for the Arctic domain.

I think to this, to the prior point on uncrewed systems, AI is ideal at helping us make sense of an environment, pattern recognition, bringing in data and understanding the environment to make better decisions and faster decisions. And this is a space where I think bringing the two together or just in general being able to leverage AI can really advantage us. So that's true across our force.

We're looking to leverage AI in general and I think it's a perfect domain in which to understand how and why it brings capability.

STAFF:  OK, thank you very much, Deputy Secretary. Thank you very much. If there's any follow ups, I'm happy to take those questions and get those answered for you. And then DASD Ferguson be stepping up in just a moment. Thanks.

STAFF:  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to introduce Iris Ferguson who currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience. And she is the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense and senior leadership for policy matters pertaining to Arctic security and global resilience to include efforts on climate adaptation, mitigation, and energy resilience.

Prior to her current appointment, DASD Ferguson was a senior advisor on Arctic and climate security issues for the US Air Force Futures and the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for operations. In that capacity, she authored and implemented the Department of the Air Force's Arctic Strategy, including advising on strategic initiatives, operations, and international partnerships related to the region.

So just a real quick recap from what Eric shared, same rules of engagement are going to be in place for this portion of the press conference. So I'll go ahead and call on the reporters ask that you limit yourself to one question, one follow up. And if we're not able to get to your question today just reach out to me afterwards and I can assist you with that. Just a reminder, this is on the record. So with that, ma'am, I'll turn it over to you for opening comments.

DASD IRIS FERGUSON:  Great. Thank you, Devin. Thanks. Thank you all for being here for today and thank you to Deputy Secretary Hicks for the introduction to the strategy.

As Deputy Secretary Hicks just noted, this is a critical time for the Arctic region with dramatic changes occurring, increased activity and access from our competitors, the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO and climate change continuing to warm the region some three times the rate of the rest of the world, this new strategy acknowledges those changes and creates a roadmap for action for the Department to lead and ensuring our national interests are safeguarded.

It's the latest example of the DOD taking Arctic security seriously. In fact, the reorganization of OSD policy to create the Office of Arctic and Global Resilience two years ago was foundational to elevate and integrate Arctic security concerns across the department, especially as they relate to our homeland defense priorities.

The Arctic plays an outsized role in defense of the homeland as a region comprises U.S. territory in Alaska and the northern approach to the homeland. The new strategy guides DOD in taking key steps to defend the homeland from enhancing our ability to detect threats from and through the Arctic to collaborating with Canada on modernizing NORAD capabilities to exercising alongside our NATO allies to hone our readiness for operations in the Arctic region.

The goal of executing our homeland defense mission underscores each of our three E's that Deputy Secretary Hicks mentioned. First, ENHANCE: to defend the homeland we must improve our domain awareness and enhance our ability to detect and respond with our Canadian allies to threats to the homeland.

A key focus for my office is championing investments that will enhance our awareness of threats in the region. We want to make sure that we have the right sensing architecture and the right communication architecture for command and control.

We must also deepen our understanding of how climate change is altering the Arctic environment through improved weather forecasting and sea ice prediction to ensure our troops and our platforms are capable of operating in conditions they may encounter.

Second, ENGAGE. Our strong network of partners including Arctic allies, federal, state, local and tribal partners are key stakeholders in securing the Arctic and our homeland. From the communities that host our bases and troops in Alaska to our colleagues in the US Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security, we all have a role to play to maintain the stability of the Arctic region.

Third, EXERCISE. We must enhance our ability to respond to deterrence, fail, exercising tactics, and equipment is a prerequisite not only for success, but for survival in the unique Arctic environment. To this end, one of my office's key implementation priorities will be ensuring that the Joint Force is equipped and prepared to operate there.

We think that this strategy offers the blueprint to take the next steps towards ensuring Arctic security and protecting our national interests by fielding and partnering on our needs now and into the future. And with that, I'm happy to take your questions.

STAFF:  OK, we'll go ahead and start with Lita.

Q:  I was going to — actually, I think there are other people who maybe didn't get questions before, so I don't want to take everybody's questions, so I'll — I'll pass and let someone else ask some.

STAFF:  OK. All right, then let's go to Tony.

Q:  I have a question on satellite capability. Given the harsh environment there and the need for on the move kind of internet capabilities, what role do you see for commercial satellite image — satellite communications? I give you Starlink. You know this, the Air Force Research Lab, last year, did a successful round of exercises with Starlink establishing on the move capability. Is Starlink the kind of capability that you hope to buy in terms of the service? And actually you — will you be budgeting for Starlink capability or OneWeb capability?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, thank you for that question. In the strategy itself, we talk about the needs that we need to invest in as a department for enhancing domain awareness to include communications architecture. Communication architecture is so critical for the Arctic region for our operators. It's an area that we haven't invested in, to date, as much because of the geo inclination or our inclination of our geosynchronous orbits. We have to actively invest in the Arctic region in particular.

We've been working over the last several years to leverage these kind of commercial assets to include the testing and development that you were talking about with our Air Force Research Lab. We found those — that testing to be highly successful. We have Starlink at SpaceX and OneWeb right now on contract with our commercial SATCOM office.

So our departments and agencies are able to procure services right now, but what we're trying to do is field the hybrid SATCOM terminals for our users so that they can access multiple constellations. That's the next round. You have the satellite capabilities and the commercial capacity, but you need the users to have their terminals to be able to access it. So that's the testing that we're going through this coming next summer is looking at the terminals that could access multiple constellations at once.

Q:  Can I ask just a follow up? Have they — they're part of that commercial satellite office, I know they get task orders. Are they getting task orders for specific Arctic operational exercises?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, I'll have to take that specific question back because I'm not — familiar with that level of specificity.

Q:  OK, thank you.

STAFF:  OK, great. Let's — let's go to the phones. We've got folks joining us on the phone. Let's go to Justin Katz, Breaking Defense.

Q:  Hi, thank you for doing this. I wanted to ask about ICE PACT, as the deputy secretary mentioned. Given that the — given that for the United States fleet, the Coast Guard largely leads, you know, icebreakers shipbuilding. Could you speak to, I guess, the — the Pentagon's role in ICE PACT? And as it relates to the — the Arctic strategy? Thank you.

FERGUSON:  Yeah, no, thanks for that really important question. The US Coast Guard plays an incredibly important mission for our Arctic security interests at large. They provide really critical assets for disaster response. They provide a lot of presence for us in the Arctic region. And we very much support their goal to acquire icebreaker capacity, including their goal to have three polar security cutters.

We've been following the partnership announcement closely with US, Finland and Canada to cooperate on the construction and build of icebreakers. And we think this is the kind of cooperation that we should be leaning into more. We really need to be leaning into our allies and partners effectively. They have high levels of proficiency and high levels of capability as Arctic nations and we can only do better by collectively working with one another.

STAFF:  OK, great. Let's come back in the room, we'll go with Idris.

Q:  Just a follow up from what Lita asked earlier. How would you define China's sort of progress in the Arctic? Is it a consistent trajectory? Is it rapid progress? And in terms of long term competitor in the Arctic, is that still Russia or would you now see China rising above them in the long term?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, I think for China, you know, we see them having a strategic interest in the Arctic. We see that being something that they've said over the last decade. They in their strategic documents, continue to have the Arctic as an area where they want to explore where they — we see them as trying to internationalize the Arctic region to kind of turn it into a bit of a global commons so that they can have access and governance there.

The Arctic is primarily governed by the jurisdiction of sovereign states, but I think China has interests in trying to influence it meaningfully. We've — you know, they have three icebreakers. We know that they are often operating under the guise of scientific research, but that much of that research is going towards military use.

We see them operating more regularly in the last several years from a military perspective. Even just a couple of weeks ago, there were several Chinese warships off of the coast of Alaska. For us, we've seen them operating closely with the Russians on occasion with combined exercises off the coast of Alaska.

We're keeping a watchful eye on how they're developing their capacity for operating in the region. And I think, you know, as we say in the department, you know, they are our long term pacing challenge. And I think that that includes in the Arctic.

STAFF:  OK, thanks. Let's go back to the phones. We'll go to Haley Britsky at CNN.

Q:  Hi. Thank you for doing this. I'm sorry if this has already been touched on. I've been breaking in and out a little bit. But I just want to clarify, because I know there's — there have been a few years of course of — of Arctic strategies. So what specifically in this Arctic strategy is a little bit different than last year? Is there any — are there any major changes or I guess redirections on — on going forward what this is going to look like?

MS. FERGUSON:  I think it's a really important question that the difference is — there's several differences. The first is how we articulate the strategic environment. We call out the Chinese involvement in the Arctic region as an area of concern. We talk about Russia's acute threat to us in our homeland within the strategy.

We talk about the PRC and Russia collaborating for the first time in this document. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO is also new, since 2019, which was the last time a strategy was released. And we talk about the undercurrent of climate change, which is impacting all of our activity and all of the human activity that's being allowed to take place in the region.

The other thing that's different about this strategy is that we really dive into the ways and means effectively. We really are trying to get after the investments that we need to be able to effectively monitor and respond. We try to be very specific in the domain awareness needs that we have, the communications architecture, the ISR architecture, the weather forecasting to try to help lend some prioritization to resourcing in the region to provide the enabling capabilities for our Joint Force to effectively operate.

And the other big thing and this is not necessarily in the strategy, is just the creation of my office. It can't be understated how big of a role that is playing in the department in terms of integrating across the Arctic region. This office was created two years ago. To integrate across the department is no small feat in general, but certainly in the Arctic region where you have three different geographic commands, NORTHCOM, EUCOM and INDOPACOM in addition to various services that all have defined equities as well.

So I think just having an office that can help not only draft a strategy but help with the implementation of it and integrating the priorities going forward is the most important differences.

STAFF:  OK, great. Coming back in the room, we'll go with Brandy.

Q:  Thank you so much and thanks for doing this. It briefly mentions that the undersecretary of Defense for Policy is going to develop a department wide policy for building enduring advantages in the Arctic. What would that include for the Department that it does not have now?

FERGUSON:  I think that phrase is actually just meant to say that the undersecretary of policy will be responsible for implementing the strategy going forward.

Q:  OK. Will there be anything else you can share on an implementation plan or materials or guidance to expand DOD's Arctic presence like with drones or otherwise?

FERGUSON:  Well, I think that's what this strategy is all about. It's about creating the roadmap for the capabilities that we need to protect our interests and to ensure that our troops have what they need to operate in the region. Just to maybe flesh out a little bit more of the investments that we've made in the last several years that I think could — that are — that we're going to continue to invest in throughout the implementation of the strategy.

You know, we've really been investing in our people. We recognize that it's an incredibly challenging place to live and to serve in. And many of the locations in the Arctic are remote and austere. And we've been focusing heavily on quality of life improvements for many of our troops that are stationed there.

And as of this summer, all servicemembers that are stationed in Alaska will actually have access to cold weather incentive pay for when they're there, they're able to buy cold weather gear for living up there. We spoke a little bit about infrastructure. The deputy secretary mentioned some of the investments in our sensing architecture, including in Archer and in NORAD.

We're also looking at what kind of infrastructure repair we might need to do due to the changing climate in particular at Pituffik Space Force Base. They are heavily impacted by permafrost thaw. And so we have some $7 million dedicated to look at how we're able to mitigate that, including potential hangar repair.

And we're working on equipment for our forces as well. The deputy secretary mentioned the Arctic angels that were recently stood up in — in Alaska. They've gotten the most state of the art cold weather gear in the last several of years. We've also spent some $280 million on cold weather all-terrain vehicles, in addition to that, cold weather gear. And then we've been really looking at space architecture as well.

And we've talked a little bit about leveraging commercial space technology. But the Space Force has also invested some $1.8 billion in the enhanced Polar System recapitalization payload, which is a payload that is actually uniquely hosted on a Space Norway satellite. It was meant to launch several weeks ago, but it will hopefully launch in the next couple of weeks.

That's the first time that we will have a payload on an allied partner satellite. It's helped us save money, helped us save about $900 million and also create a more rapid acquisition process for us. And it will be providing Arctic communications to our strategic users for the first time. So it's these kinds of unique partnerships that we're looking to really leverage going forward that you will see more of as we go through implementation.

Q:  I guess what I'm really trying to understand is immediate next steps. Is there an implementation plan? Is there anything we can expect to see from you guys coming from this strategy? It mentions a lot of continuing assessments, evaluating existing capabilities. So what are some concrete next steps that are coming?

FERGUSON:  Yes, so one other important point of continuity within our federal government approach to this problem set is that we recently released a national strategy for the Arctic region. That also has an implementation plan associated. There's a whole security pillar to that that we are responsible for implementing.

And so many of the objectives that we're looking to move forward on are also reflected in that national strategy for the Arctic Region implementation plan - which is public - so I would encourage you to go look at that, in addition to any kind of publications that we might put out following the release of the strategy. I think, you know, we will have an implementation plan. It's unclear if it will be public or not.

STAFF:  OK, thank you. Let's — let's go to Chris Gordon in the room.

Q:  Thank you. Nora just mentioned a lot in the strategy and here for obvious reasons. How much is this strategy dependent on Canadian investments such as an aircraft which is sometimes been lacking admittedly on their side? And for example, the strategy mentioned some 250 allied aircraft that are coming by the 2030s that could operate in the Arctic. How confident are you that allies are going to come through there?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, our Canadian partners are integral as are all of our Arctic allies to the success of this strategy. Our Arctic allies and partners are so unique in that they have such a high concentration of capability and geopolitical alignment with us. I would argue that there's probably no greater concentration of likeminded partners anywhere else in the world, in addition to their high levels of capability.

So we lean heavily on them. Canada is an incredibly important partner, not only for the defense of NORAD but for also other developing capabilities for defense of North America. We partner with them often in exercises including in recent Arctic Edge and of course in NORTHCOM exercises. I am tracking their, you know, recent — their announcement to buy F-35s. They are included that in that figure of 250 advanced generation aircraft.

That's another incredible statistic just to show the alignment of our allies and partners that the majority of our Arctic allies will have F-35s to include Canada. You know, we take their word in terms of their investment. And we look forward to partnering with them going forward.

STAFF: Let's go back out to the phones. We'll go to Brad Dress, from The Hill.

Q:  Hi. Yeah, thanks for doing this. So in the strategy you talk about investing in drones and aircraft for the Arctic. Are you referring to like new types of technology that have yet to be created that you're going to develop? Or are you talking about like improving what you have now for Arctic missions? Thank you.

FERGUSON:  Yeah, thanks. I think it's a really important question and the deputy secretary hit a little bit on this question in terms of unmanned aircraft. It's really tricky place to operate with ground operations and with manned platforms. So where we can lean into remote platforms, it can make a lot of sense.

However, it's really tricky to operate remote platforms due to weather and due to connectivity issues. And so that's where we're trying to lean is looking at how we can test and do some R&D around ensuring these platforms can operate. I think we're, you know, looking to work with our allies and partners to determine the art of the possible in terms of what platforms is it existing or is it new?

Um, just to you know, briefly fill out as well on the AI question, I think that that's also really important. It's trying to look at how we can use our machine learning to better interpret a really complicated landscape where we don't necessarily have as much data as we wish. A couple of examples where we've done that to effect recently is looking at Coast Guard imagery, in some 12,000 images to detect maritime targets with our Coast Guard partners.

We've also worked looking at acoustic energies to employ on our submarines and on our P-8 aircraft. So you know, we're committed to trying to leverage the best technology available. And are also, of course, trying to do so in a manner that's both responsible and lawful.

STAFF:  Yes, sir, in the back.

Q:  Real quick. If a future presidential administration were to close the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, how would that affect DOD's ability to operate in the Arctic and this strategy?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, I'd have to defer, you know, questions on agencies to that agency itself. We do lean on NOAA pretty heavily right now with our Arctic weather forecasting. We work very closely with our Air Force weather community, but also our naval weather community works closely with NOAA to detect weather forecasting and for ice forecasting.

The program that Deputy Secretary Hicks mentioned that the Navy is investing in to look at different ice pack concentrations, especially at nighttime, which has actually been a challenge for our forecasters. That is a NOAA program that we're partnering with them on, but I would have to defer to NOAA on that.

Q:  Is it fair to say there's a lot of dependency on NOAA for the continuation of current programs?

FERGUSON:  I think it's fair to say that our approach to the Arctic as a whole of government effort and there's a lot of dependency across the board on various agencies to make sure we do it right.

STAFF:  Let's go back to the phones. Patty Nyberg, from Task and Purpose.

Q:  Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit more details on the nature of military operations you're seeing between Russia and China. Like are kind of — are they both supplying the same amount of troops? Is it one country supplying more technology over the other? If you can kind of give us more details?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, well, I'm assuming you're talking about how they're working with one another in the region. I think we've seen an uptick in their cooperation over the last several of years. We see China investing in a lot of Russian energy in order to not only have them supply the energy to the PRC, but also that is helping embolden some of Russia's activity in Ukraine.

We see them exercising diplomatic agreements, including between the Chinese and Russian Coast Guard within the Arctic region. We also see military exercises for the first time. I mentioned a combined exercise that we saw off the coast of Alaska, just last year where we sent several destroyers to counter their presence off of our coast.

But I also, you know, while we see this increasing collaboration, I think it's also important to note that it's somewhat superficial in nature still, especially from a military perspective. I mean, we know what it takes to operate with our Arctic allies and partners. And the months and the years that it takes to build interoperability, to build trust, to build know how for operating in the Arctic region.

And so you know, flying in circles with one another briefly or deploying alongside one another one another is maybe good for optics, but we know that that's not the same kind of level of in-depth cooperation that we have with our partners.

STAFF:  Thank you, ma'am. We'll take one final question with Louis.

Q:  Thank you. The first Arctic strategy was issued I think 2013, a decade later. Can you get us through the evolution of how these strategies have changed from that initial look which was looking multilateral, you know, multilateral action about detecting changes up there and to where we are today with this new strategy?

FERGUSON:  Yeah, I think there's been a slow evolution not only in what these strategies say, but how the department is approaching implementing them. You know, the first strategies were kind of acknowledging the challenges of getting after an environment that we had sort of othered for quite some time. We were really heavily focused on the Middle East for a long time.

You know, in the Cold War, we had a lot of emphasis on the Arctic. That's where a lot of our infrastructure today is actually from the Cold War era. Had a lot of R&D into how to navigate the Arctic and a lot of know how quite frankly. So, these first strategies I think were a recognition of, hey, we might need to get after this problem set in a more profound way.

And slowly over time, there's been a bit of a greater awakening in the department. Not only about our needs for homeland defense because the technology that has changed so much from our adversaries and our need to modernize some of that, but also that we can't just show up to operate there.

We've got to exercise there with proficiency. We've got to make sure that we are working with our partners and actually exercising with one another so that we survive when we are there. So I think the evolution that you've seen is not just in semantics of a strategy where we've gone from acknowledging the problem to, you know, slowly articulating it more profoundly to now we're, I think, getting into the nitty gritty of how do you implement a strategy. And again, I'll restate the how importance of an office to do that and that's where my office is going to be heavily involved again in implementation.

STAFF:  Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you didn't get a chance to grab a hard copy of the strategy, we have those. If you didn't get a question, go ahead and reach out to me. The strategy is currently online at the DOD website. Thank you, ma'am.